Roots
by WeirdSisters60
Summary: Severus SnapeOriginal Female Character. An unconventional romance that vacillates between fluffy-humor and dark-drama. Snape tutors student, student and Snape get on each other's nerves, crazy bow-chicka-bow-bow making out ensues. Eventually. CHAPTER 3.
1.

Disclaimer: We own Eleanor, Jin, Celosia, Cecil, Abigail, Mary Jane, a few odd spells, plants, potions, and creatures, and nothing else. If you recognize it, it's not ours.

Chapter One: "But if you think that I'm not strong, you'd best watch out. Nothing can stop me."

The potions classroom was always freezing, even on a warm day like this. Eleanor Dewey shivered intermittently inside her robes, wishing she had given in and worn a sweater underneath. She hated the pudgy look the heavy clothes gave her under her thin warm-weather robes, but right now she'd happily forgo a svelte figure and endure the smug looks of her roommates for something thick and wooly around her arms and shoulders. She cursed her vanity and kept as close as possible to the low flame shimmering beneath her cauldron, giving her  potion an extra, hopeful poke with her pestle. She hated these practical exams; she had failed two already this year. Professor Snape was moving quickly down the rows, taking a cursory glance into each cauldron, snapping a short series of instructions, and leaving panicky or disconsolate students in his wake. If the cold hadn't already broken her out into goosebumps, the approaching sneer of Professor Snape certainly would.

"I see you've added too much Bleeding-Heart," said Snape, suddenly looming over her like a thundercloud. "You've clearly not gotten a feel for weighing. That'll be ten points off."

"I'm sorry, Professor," Eleanor replied automatically.

Snape lowered his eyelids. "'Sorry' will not repair your Numbing Salve, Miss Dewey, nor will it raise your examination score. Now, you've steeped your Serpentvine correctly, but there isn't enough dragonfly wing in this paste. Add it in and see what happens."

Eleanor scraped the paste out of the mortar and into her cauldron. The mixture turned a bilious green.

"Done correctly it would be pale blue," Snape droned. "Evidently the American curricula are somewhat light in the area of potion-making." Eleanor stared down at her lap, humiliated. "Sixty points out of one-hundred," Snape continued, before moving to the student at the adjacent desk.

It was true that Eleanor was not a prodigy at potions. Ever since she had transferred to Hogwarts from the Mar Encantado Institute of Magic in California she had been doing badly in Snape's class. Herbology was her concentration; that was why she had come to Hogwarts in the first place. Professor Sprout was said to be one of the most talented Herbologists in the wizarding world, and Eleanor had received a grant to study under her tutelage.

But if she failed Potions, she'd have to go back. For most of this term she had felt a nervous nausea in her stomach whenever Potions – or the Potions Master – were mentioned. Which was fairly often, as many of the other sixth years were experiencing similar anxieties over their marks.

She hated the thought of going back. She had nothing to go back to.

"Twelve out of one-hundred, MacDuffy, and go dump it down the basin before it eats through your cauldron," she heard Snape say from far down the row. She sighed. Something had to be done, and it probably wouldn't be pleasant. She put her head down on her desk and waited.

Snape finally ended the exam with a dismissive wave of his hand and began to take inventory of a shelf full of vials and jars. Eleanor packed her things but lingered near her desk until the last student had exited.

"Professor Snape," she began timidly.

"Make it quick, Dewey, I've another test to give in ten minutes," Snape snapped.

"I was wondering – well, you know how badly I'm doing in Potions. And if I don't pass, I'll have to change schools again." Snape kept his back turned to her, his face in oblique profile. The fluid-filled vials cast odd greens and blues onto his ashen skin. "I was wondering if you could find the time to tutor me. Occasionally. Whenever it's convenient. I _really_ want to get the hang of Potions." Her heart was hammering and she struggled to keep her arms at her sides. The thought of her future in Snape's pale, arachnoid hands was a frightening one.

"I do not make a habit of pandering to my students' _individual_ academic deficits, Miss Dewey," Snape said dispassionately, still facing away from her. "If you cannot keep up _in_ class, I see no reason to waste my time with you _outside_ it. If you fear for your grade, I suggest you drop the course."

Her eyes widened. "I can't!" she cried. "Potions and Herbology go hand-in-hand – I need a N.E.W.T. in both! And anyway, it's too late in the semester to drop without a negative mark on my record! I'm only asking for –"

"I _heard_ your request," Snape said acidly, finally turning around, dark eyes singeing her. "It is denied. Good day." He whipped around to face the shelf again, robes spinning out from him and then wrapping around his legs like a whip.

"Thank you, sir," Eleanor said weakly, and left, fighting the urge to run. She wandered blankly into the Great Hall, registering only dimly that it was lunchtime. She let herself be herded into place by the other students.

Fred Weasley jumped up from his seat as soon as he saw her. George waved and grinned at her but did not follow his brother.

"Ellie, what's wrong?" Fred asked quietly, taking her by the arm and leading her to an empty spot at the Ravenclaw table.

"It's nothing, I – uh –" She sighed. "Is it obvious? Are my eyes red or something?"

Fred straddled the bench beside her, provoking a few raised eyebrows from the surrounding Ravenclaws. He spoke in an uncharacteristic hush. "No, no, you look okay. I know you though. You're clutching yourself like you've seen a ghost."

"Not a ghost, just a fucking vampire," she spat. Fred raised an eyebrow.

"Hm. Snape?"

She smiled humorlessly. "I hadn't realized how accurate the comparison is. The man _sucks_ you _dry_. He drains the life out of a room. Do you think he has a soul?"

"What'd he do to you?"

"I'm failing Potions. Miserably. If I don't pass, I go home. So I go to him, practically on my knees with my _mouth_ open, and ask him if he can give me some time, give me anything at all, to help me stay afloat until exams. Not only does he turn me down, he insults my intelligence and _hardly spares me a glance while he's doing it._ And I know – oh, I fucking _know_ he's going to find a way to bring it up in class tomorrow. To humiliate me. Because evidently it's not embarrassing enough to have _no_ demonstrable talent _whatsoever_ –"

"Calm _down_, Eleanor. Take a breath, have some food." Fred gestured at the overfull serving platters. She inhaled deeply and took a bread roll. She had no appetite, so she busied herself tearing it into bits and laying them on her plate. "Have you thought of a student tutor?" Fred continued.

"No one will take me. Everybody's too busy worrying about their own grade. I even asked Hermione Granger – a _fourth_ year, for Merlin's sake." 

Fred sighed. "Well – look, why don't you go to Sprout about it? She'll want to keep you around, won't she? Maybe she can pull a string or two, soften him up a bit?"

"I guess. I feel like I've done enough begging already, but… yeah. I'll try."

"It'll be fine, Ellie. You'll pull through." Fred, like his brother, was irritatingly constant in his optimism. She regularly battled herself over the urge to pointedly educate him that things didn't always turn out all right, that people didn't always find a way to wiggle out of their personal disasters, that she had firsthand experience in life's habit of making good things crash and burn. But today it would do her no good to disillusion him, so she decided to find his naïveté quaint and let it go. She patted Fred's shoulder and gave him a quick, half-genuine smile.

Her eyes narrowed as she spied Snape sitting at the High Table. He was staring out at the Slytherin table, expressionless, chewing rhythmically. "No," she said quietly. "He can't possibly have a soul."

Fred rolled his eyes. "Eat," he urged. "You don't want to give Snape the satisfaction of having starved you to death." She picked a shred of bread roll off of her plate and gnawed absently on it. It tasted yeasty and dry, seeming to suck the moisture from her mouth.

            She went to the greenhouses after her last class, walking quickly with her head down. She knew she should take this opportunity to stroll rather than hustle, to bathe in the sweet vernal twilight that fell in dusty glows and shadows upon the Hogwarts grounds – after all, she wasn't sure she'd ever get to see another spring here – but she was holding in a jitteriness that bordered so closely on panic that she could hardly stop herself from sprinting. She wanted to meet her fate head-on.

"Professor Sprout?" she called, stepping into one of the greenhouses. Sprout emerged from behind an overgrown _Cruscruris Araneus_, shears in hand.

"Ellie!" she chirped. "Any news about your Wild Pepperspit? Is it doing better next to the window?"

"It's still looking a bit weak," Eleanor said uneasily. "That's not why I'm here, though." She paused as the _Araneus_ surreptitiously arced one of its jointed stalks over Sprout's head. Sprout jabbed her shears threateningly at the plant's hairy bulb, and the stalk retreated.

"What's that, dear?" Sprout asked.

Eleanor took a deep breath, feeling oddly plaintive, petulant, like a schoolyard tattletale. "Um. Well, I told you how I wasn't doing… _spectacularly_ in Potions?" Sprout nodded and raised an eyebrow. "That was kind of an understatement. It doesn't look like I'm going to pass." Sprout frowned, looking surprised, but let Eleanor continue. "I mean, I could, if I had some help. A tutor to get me through to the exam. But I can't find a student to do it, and I went to Snape, and –" she broke off with a frustrated sigh.

Sprout nodded sagely. "Ah."

"So…" Eleanor let out a hard sigh. "I don't know what to do. I need your help."

Sprout bustled over to her. "Oi, Ellie, don't look so nervous. I'll let you in on a secret." Her eyes twinkled conspiratorially. "Snape owes me many a favor for late-night runs to the greenhouse for this herb and that sap and aged-root-of-the-other-thing. I'm his… his _dealer_, after all." She snickered to herself and patted Eleanor on the shoulder. "We'll get this all worked out. We can't afford to lose you."

Eleanor smiled gratefully. An _Araneus_ stalk crept quietly across a potting table, inching toward Sprout's apron pocket. Eleanor grabbed a trowel out of a nearby hanging fuchsia and slapped at the bristly appendage. It pulled back with a creepy rustle. Sprout grinned and shook her head.

*           *           *

"And just where do you think you're going, Miss Dewey?" There was a menacing curl to the words.

Eleanor stopped in her tracks, just in front of the suit of armor that marked the entrance to the Ravenclaw dormitories.

"Come to give me detention, _Professor Snape_?" she smirked. "I'm afraid I'm busy. Bugger off and kick a Hufflepuff or something if it makes you feel better." She pivoted to face the speaker.

"How'd you know it was me?" Fred Weasley said sulkily. George was beside him, snickering.

"Besides the fact that your voice is an octave higher than his?" teased George.

"_And_ the fact that your accent is twangy Devon, and Snape's is London posh," said Eleanor. "But really, it's mainly that you're just not _creepy_ enough. You've got to really get your Boris Karloff on." The twins' faces looked blank. "You know…? Oh, never mind." She added yet again to her long series of mental notes to stop using Muggle culture in her analogies. "Anyway, you've got to really camp it up." She stormed toward them suddenly, glaring, fanning her robes out behind her. "I don't expect you to truly understand the beauty of the simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of the liquids that rush through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…" She bent her voice dramatically, discarding her flat American accent in favor one of the many British patois that swirled around her daily at Hogwarts, forcing her tone as deep as it would go, letting it swirl around the words, rushing in spots, drawling in others, with shades and tones of malice and disdain coloring every syllable. She held her face in a haughty sneer, with one eyebrow arched condescendingly and her upper lip twitching. She stopped in front of George and narrowed her eyes threateningly. "Five hundred squillion points from Gryffindor, Weasley, for having the nerve to exist on my planet."

Fred snorted loudly. George fell to his knees and threw his arms around Eleanor's waist, crying out, "Please, Professor Snape! Don't hurt me! Hurt Fred instead, please, he hates you and thinks you smell like the back end of a Manticore. He told me so."

Eleanor broke up laughing and gave George's hair a playful tug. Fred socked her shoulder chummily, saying, "Not a bad impression, El. You seem to have paid quite a bit of attention to our Potions Master's little mannerisms, hm? A bit taken with him, are you? The tall, dark, and -"

She cut him off with a grimace. "- _please_ don't make me vomit, Fred. My day will have been quite fabulous enough without having ended on a gastronomical rummage sale. What the hell are you two doing here, anyway?"

The twins grinned and glanced at each other in their characteristically impish way. "We know you've had a bad time of it lately, and we've brought you a present to make you feel better," said George. From his back pocket, Fred produced a small white paper pouch, tied with red ribbon and bulging with a number of small and indeterminate shapes. Eleanor raised an eyebrow, circumspect.

"Aw, Ellie, don't look at us like that," Fred said plaintively. "You'd think we were trying to poison you or something."

Eleanor took the bag from him warily and pulled the ribbon to take a peek inside. It was filled, predictably, with a variety of colorful candies, undoubtedly the fruits of their last Hogsmeade holiday. Striped licorice allsorts, mottled Every Flavor Beans, gleaming sherberts, geological chunks of toffee. She was suddenly and forcefully reminded of how little she had eaten today.

"And you haven't – you know – _done_ anything to them, have you?"

Fred gasped and George jumped a step back, clutching his chest. "How _dare_ you," whispered Fred, evidently breathless with shock. George shook his head sadly.

"You know, trust is a vital part of any working relationship, El."

Eleanor rolled her eyes.

"Enjoy them," Fred said, leaning close to her, the mirth gone from his face and a rare, soft look in his eyes.

With that, the twins disappeared around a bend in the corridor. As always, the space they left behind them seemed emptier and more silent than it had been before they came, as if joy were a palpable thing, a thing that somehow stuck to them. She sighed wearily and turned, absently murmuring the password – "_Metutum Diluculum_" – and heading through the near-deserted common room and up to her dormitory. All of her roommates were already in.

"'lo, El," said Celosia Sutter, a tall girl with a messy blonde bun held in place by an unused quill. She hardly looked up from her book, _Ludicrously Complicated Runes and their Infuriatingly Simplistic Translations_. Across the room, Jin Woo, a thin girl with a shaggy pixie cut, gave her a shy smile and a wave. Her other roommates, Abigail Beauchamps and Mary Jane Abbott, ignored her. She was used to this. She sat cross-legged on her bed and contemplated her bag of candy. Her black and white cat Pandora leapt sinuously onto the bed and gave the bag a delicate sniff.

"The twins gave me these," she said thoughtfully. "What do you think they'll do to me?"

Jin giggled. Celosia sighed deeply. "Best case: they'll go right to your thighs. Worst case: they'll turn you into a salamander and I'll be forced to chase you all over the room and bottle you up in a mayonnaise jar. And then I won't have time to study, and I will fail my Ancient Runes exam, and in my subsequent rage I will smash your salamander body into tiny green pieces. In other words, please don't eat them." She irritably turned a page. "By the way, how was your Potions practical?"

Eleanor shuddered. "I don't want to talk about it. I _do_ want, however –" she drew a licorice from the bag "- to drown my sorrows in glucose. Down the hatch." She popped it in her mouth and chewed carefully, experimentally. It tasted all of the ways expected of a licorice allsort. She held up her hands. They were still human-shaped and of normal coloration. "Well, there's a first time for everything."

"You're eating those _now_? Right before bed?" said Abigail sourly, from across the room. Mary Jane whispered something in her ear and they giggled secretively. Eleanor rolled her eyes dismissively, feeling only a slight internal pinch. She had roomed with them far too long to be seriously wounded. She dropped the bag on her bedside table, gave Pandora a firm stroke down her sleek, flexible back, and headed to the bathroom to groom for bed.

She felt a little guilty for her skepticism of the Weasleys' intentions. _I didn't even thank them_, she thought, running a comb absently through her hair. They had only tried to help her salvage what would otherwise have been a sorry waste of a day, and she had behaved as though they were offering her a dream date with Sirius Black. She felt a twinge of sympathy for them. _Life must be difficult when no one takes you seriously_, she thought. _Not that the twins do much to remedy _that_ situation_. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror.

"It's not _my_ fault you're having a bad hair day, dear," it scolded. Her frown deepened. Her hair was looking a bit flaccid. She stuck her tongue out at herself, feeling sulky. Then she screamed.

"Weasleys! Damned, bloody, blasted, fucking Weasleys!" Eleanor hopped up and down in front of the mirror in a smoking fury.

"What? Eleanor, what's wrong, for Godric's sake?" Celosia cried, skidding on the bathroom floor in her socks. She must have heard from all the way across the hall. Eleanor whirled to face her, tongue protruding angrily from her mouth.

It had turned bright yellow. And then electric blue. And then a shocking purple. And then a brilliant orange. A carnival of colors pulsed like an ambulance light on her tongue. Celosia clapped a hand to her mouth and split into giggles. Eleanor couldn't stop a short laugh from heaving out of her, and then another, and in a moment they were clutching one another for support, their knees wobbling dangerously, their breathless, choking laughter echoing off the bathroom tile.

*           *           *

Eleanor had left a sliver of space between her bed-curtains so that the moon could shine in on her face. She had never liked falling asleep in heavy darkness. When she was a child, she had nearly set herself on fire more than once after falling asleep with a wand on _Lumos_ lying on the pillow beside her. Pandora jumped off the side of the bed, rustling the casements and leaving them swinging. Her light footsteps spanned the room and faded away.

The sick, clenching neurosis of the day was evaporating. _Damn the Weasleys_, she thought. _And bless them_. With the help of Jin Woo, the resident Charms prodigy, she and Celosia had managed to get her tongue to stop flashing colors. Instead, it had settled on one color: a rich, royal purple. She smiled faintly. It must be good to be a Weasley, to always have a gag or a grin at the ready, to own an unflickering belief that all sadnesses and sicknesses can be mended with a little well-placed humour. In a tumbling, shouting, loving family like theirs, optimism was as good as a birthright. She felt a cold twist in the pit of her stomach. She shouldn't envy them their lives.

Maybe she could take a lesson from them. Maybe she should believe tonight that everything was going to be all right, that bad things didn't happen to good people, that licorice allsorts could heal a heart. 

She fell asleep with the moon setting below her windowsill and a small glow of hope in the center of her chest.

_This chapter's title is a lyric from "Nothing Can Stop Me" by Heavens to Betsy._


	2. 

**Chapter Two: "This noise is as much as I can bear."**

The water had not boiled yet.

Dried root of Black Nightshade, powdered in his mortar, a rhythmic working of the wrist. Snape knew precisely how fine it needed to be; exactly how it should feel between his fingers. The root was fragrant, a musty earth scent, spicy like a foreign tea. It came from a plant with poisonous leaves, poisonous sap, poisonous flowers, poisonous fruit, but it itself was not poisonous. It could take on an altogether new life and function when dried.

He kept the other parts of Nightshade in his stores as well.

To his cauldron he added the root and three painstakingly measured drops of lion's milk, along with a sprinkling of oolong leaves and a teaspoon of honey. For flavor. This potion was a bitter one, and left an aftertaste. For years he had suffered drinking it straight, gagging and grimacing as it burned down his throat, but recently he gave up his pride and began to sweeten it. He would not admit to anyone that he did this.

From his faintly glowing fireplace, there was a sudden rush of air. "Ah, Severus, I thought you'd be awake," he heard, a ghostly echo. He turned to face the Headmaster's spectral head sitting calmly inside. "A word, if I may have one. In my office." Severus nodded gruffly and Dumbledore's head withdrew, leaving an eddying swirl of soot on the hearth.

The water hit a riotous boil, hissing and spitting deliriously. He scooped out two ladlefuls and stirred each slowly into the mixture. He waved his wand absently at the flames underneath and they died suddenly. After lidding his cauldron, he left his chambers for the Headmaster's office, warding the door thoroughly behind him.

"Severus," Dumbledore said warmly, standing behind his desk. "Have a seat." He swept a hand toward the empty chair across from him. The one beside it was occupied by Pomona Sprout, who was looking faintly smug. Severus sat and snuck a wary glance at her out the corner of his eye before turning his attention to the Headmaster. Dumbledore sat and steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on the broad oak desk. "I don't suppose you'd like a sherbert?" Snape shook his head. The Headmaster nodded. "Pomona tells me that one of her best pupils – one Eleanor Dewey, I trust you recognize the name – is in danger of receiving poor marks in your class, and thus losing her scholarship to this school."

"Yes, and?" Snape drawled irritably.

"_And,_ Severus, I'm told that she requested your assistance." Snape nodded warily. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "And I was wondering what _exactly_ you believe is your job at Hogwarts."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "Headmaster, it is not my job to mollycoddle the students. I present the course material in a linear and accessible way, and the onus to absorb it is on them. If they do not – well, that's their own problem."

Sprout huffed annoyedly. "Similarly, it's not my job to keep digging up Black Nightshade roots and hanging them to dry for you, but I do it because it's the _decent thing_."

Dumbledore held a hand up to Sprout. "I do appreciate your position, Severus," he said. "However, if one's students are failing to absorb said course material, even after concentrated effort and study –" Sprout nodded vigorously at this. "- Perhaps it is not they who have failed, but their instructor."

Snape drew his spine painfully straight, leveling the Headmaster with a flashing, indignant stare. "You are telling me that I'm – what? – an _ineffective_ professor?" he said quietly, his voice needle-sharp and dangerous.

"I am suggesting, Severus, that perhaps your methods might be optimized if you occasionally made a concession to your students, rather than the other way round."

"I cannot go pledging my spare time – my _rare_ and _valuable_ spare time – to every dim torch in the school, spoon-feeding them their lessons. I'd be forced to give up sleeping, and it's a hobby I rather enjoy."

"I only ask that you accommodate those who come directly to you for help. Which, I take it –" Dumbledore cast a mirthful look at Sprout. "- is hardly a phenomenon that plagues you daily."

Snape's lips thinned.

"Twice a week, Severus, that's all I ask. One hour per session, at any time that suits you. Answer her questions. Seek out her weaknesses and correct them however you see fit. Make an effort to teach her. Consider it a challenge." Severus scowled, digging his fingers into his knees, feeling powerless. The Headmaster rose and smiled pleasantly. "Shall we to breakfast?"

*           *            *

The Great Hall at breakfast was always bubbling with noise. Owls swooped to and fro overhead, raining papers and packages onto the tables and occasionally into the plates. The students bickered crankily and rambled sleepily and squealed over their mail and grumbled over their schedules, wandering in and dashing out of the Hall at their leisure. Snape had learned over his years at Hogwarts to tune out the majority of the students' aural pollution, but today it irritated him, seeming to jangle right in his ears like a fistful of Sickles dropped on a stone floor. He had slept badly the night before, waking well before dawn and thrashing about uncomfortably before finally forsaking his bed. Brewing was one of the few things that made the time pass quickly for him, so he had spent the dragging pre-dawn blackness bustling over his potion, wishing he had thought to make and drink a batch last night.

He poured himself a mug of rich-smelling coffee from one of the huge carafes on the High Table. As a rule he did not eat breakfast; he was rarely hungry in the mornings.

There was a roar of laughter from the Ravenclaw table. Snape squinted into the melee of breakfasting students. The Weasley twins were hopping back and forth between the Ravenclaw table and their own, guffawing and gesticulating wildly. Typical. Constantly running about and sniggering. No respect for House boundaries, either; they hung around with a small herd of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Fraternizing with the enemy. George Weasley sprinted down the length of Ravenclaw's table, leaning down to speak to one of its occupants. She turned around to face the Gryffindors, and virtually the whole table rioted with laughter. The girl turned back and put her head down on the table, her shoulders shaking violently.

He recognized her, of course. She was the girl who had ruined his day virtually before it had begun. His face bent into a grimace. His free time _was_ seldom and to him it _was_ valuable. At the moment he resented Dumbledore intensely; the man seemed to feel entitled to dole out Snape's leisure hours like sherbert lemons. After a day spent swarmed by students, their ceaseless babble and hostile faces swirling constantly around him, he wanted nothing more than a quiet space, with no eyes on him, no questions needing to be answered, no appointments to keep. His need for privacy was as intense and regular as an appetite, and after each long starving day he disappeared into his chambers to binge. In his rooms he could drink up silence or soft music or the crackle of his fireplace; he could fill himself with his large and precious collection of books, or painstaking, ever-changing lists of herbs and extracts, the seeds of a breakthrough new potion, or simply lazy, spiraling, indeterminate chains of thought, the sound of his own voice in his head.

This new arrangement simply meant one more hour spent hungry, one fewer private hour between the drudgery of class and the emptiness of sleep. He felt bereft, cheated.

*           *            *

"Elderberries, or _Sambucus_, are – as you can see – large, dark, and thick-skinned. Eaten raw they are rather tart and very seedy, thus I welcome you to sample your ingredients provided you choke quietly and your death-by-suffocation does not disrupt my lecture." He sliced a glare in the direction of a pair of Hufflepuffs who had been regarding their ingredients with gleaming, tempted eyes. "The berries are used in various banal and non-magical ways by wizards and Muggles alike; they are crushed into jams and jellies, sugared and baked into pies, juiced and fermented into light wines. A sect of nomadic squibs in Eastern Europe known as Gypsies utilize them as a remedy for common colds and coughs. However…" His voice swooped dramatically. "… today you shall see that they are a key ingredient in a complex and nuanced Mood-Elevating Draught not unlike – but far superior to – the Muggle antidepressant medicines. A long-term cycle of doses can be used to help lift the veil of guilt, of loneliness, of grief. Be warned, this is no feeble Pepperup Potion. The preparation of it is as intense and multifaceted as the results. Mixed, stored, or applied inappropriately, it can produce a myriad of unwanted psychological effects. Which is why few bother with it. That, and it has a rather unpleasantly sour taste." He waved his wand at the blackboard, where a detailed, bulleted list appeared. "Begin," he commanded, settling into his chair. The many heads bowed over the many cauldrons, hushed. The whisperings would begin shortly: Hufflepuffs hissing questions at the Ravenclaws, Ravenclaws muttering instructions in return. The Headmaster, Snape reflected grudgingly, was wise in mating the two houses for Potions class, despite the unpleasant by-product of the Slytherin-Gryffindor match. Hufflepuffs generally possessed the concentration and passion, but not the logical or mnemonic skills required of a potions-maker; Ravenclaws as a rule had the memory and the capacity for analytical thought, but regarded the art as a quantifiable, mathematical function, and thus disregarded the subtleties and intangibles that were so important to the process. (Snape knew better than most of his students ever would that the better part of a successful potion was the barely detectable but fully integral aura of magic instilled in it by its maker; correctly proportioned ingredients were not enough, otherwise Muggles would have mastered the field by now. The most important tool in potions-making was not the hand, but the heart. Of course, if the students couldn't figure that out on their own, he certainly wasn't going to shove it down their throats. Some things, in his opinion, could not be learned from a lecture or a text.) Together, the houses made the cold classroom fairly crackle with potential; sadly and predictably, that potential was seldom realized.

Today, surely, would be no different. He would normally assign this potion later in the year, after the students had mastered the basic Pepperup and other mood-managers. However, today he had felt like stumping them, seeing the lost expressions on their faces, and buying himself a little quiet time in the process. He noted with a glint of satisfaction that the Dewey girl was staring worriedly into her cauldron, glancing back and forth between it and the chalkboard. She, like her housemates, had never understood the fine, impalpable aspects of Potions. She had no innate feel or eye for measurement, her timing was imprecise, and she simply didn't a have a passion for it. She was always focused and studious in class, but her potions were a dead giveaway that her heart wasn't in it.

And he was expected to drag her by the hand through her lessons. He narrowed his eyes, framing her in his eyelashes as she bent low to breathe in the steam that danced above her cauldron. He was to spend his time pounding the same rote lessons into her orderly Ravenclaw head, knowing she didn't have a space in the shelves and partitions of her brain for the scarce, nebulous something that was the key to a flawless brew. And a passing grade.

Perhaps he could have a little fun with this.

"Miss Dewey," he said smoothly, souring her name like an insult. "Are you having a difficulty with your assignment?"

"_Several_ difficulties, Professor," she replied, her voice meek but the undercurrent of sarcasm evident. Titters rattled around the room.

"Tell me, do you understand the _theory_ behind this potion? The _meaning _of its ingredients?" Her eyes shifted uncertainly. "Why don't you explain to me the function of Kappa scale extract, and how it serves as a catalyst for the Elderberry?"

Her mouth opened and closed once, mutely. 

"Uh…" she began, looking around at her classmates as if for some silent support. "Well. The Kappa, being an aquatic creature known to drag swimmers to their deaths, is symbolic, of course, of the powerful undertow of depression. Which this potion has been proven to fight. The Kappa's scales, being fishlike, evoke the power of Pisces, the moodiest and most depressive astrological sign. They provide a… counterpoint… to the Elderberry, which is tangy and used in pastries, and thus represents joy and light-heartedness. Therefore, the Elderberry fights a sort of miniature war against the Kappa scale extract, utilizing the powers of sweet, juicy… berry goodness to conquer the bleak, frightening pull of depression, and setting the drinker free of the vice-like grip of their sadness and worry, which would otherwise drag them into the depths to drown." She exhaled sharply, as if with great relief, and raised her eyebrows at him hopefully. A small group of Hufflepuffs were stirred into a weak splatter of applause which was silenced immediately by his hard glare in their direction.

"That, Miss Dewey…" he began thoughtfully, tilting his head as though considering her point. She broke into a nervous smile. "…was truly the most wretched excuse for an answer I have ever received from one of my students. And that includes first years and the infamous Neville Longbottom. If Hogwarts set up special education facilities to accommodate the mentally feeble residents of St. Mungo's, I can assure you it would include them too. Every single person in this class _including myself_ is now a measurable degree less intelligent than they were when they walked in today just for having listened to that diseased tripe you've spewed all over the classroom. And trust me, many of them don't have a wide margin for error in that department. You have stolen something from all of us that we will never get back. Now sit down before you find a way to further damage our already severely traumatized cerebra." Dewey sank into her seat, her shoulders hunched sheepishly. A fellow Ravenclaw, Sutter, gave her a few condoling pats. "By the way," Snape added, rising from his chair and strolling across the room to tower over Dewey. "Your little exercise in blackmail has succeeded, and you've won yourself a little _special_ help from me. Five o'clock, today, in my office. If you are late, I will leave." He raked the room with a sharp glare. The shocked faces told him that he had just ensured that no one else would be asking for his help. He lowered his eyes for a lingering, quenching look at the horror and humiliation on Dewey's face, and swept back to his seat.

The rest of the class passed in absolute silence.

*           *            *

The timid knock came at five minutes before five. Snape smiled faintly to himself. "Enter," he ordered. The door creaked open slowly and Dewey crept inside. Snape stared at her just long enough that he knew he had unnerved her, even though she didn't look away. Then he returned to the assignments he was grading without inviting her to sit down. He was mildly surprised that she didn't make a move toward the chair anyway; in his experience, her generation understood little of the unspoken courtesies.

He graded quickly and with a measure of flourish, slicing deadly red gashes through with his quill, exaggerating the motions for her benefit. She needed to comprehend immediately and thoroughly who ruled these sessions. As long as he held the reins firmly, he could make this a little easier on himself. He kept an eye on the many-armed clock on his desk. At five o'clock exactly, he set down his quill.

"I suppose you'll want a seat," he said neutrally. She studied him for a moment, then edged cautiously toward one of the chairs that faced his desk. He couldn't recall seeing her in one of his chairs before, but he had no doubt that she had heard stories of the terror that generally afflicted their occupants. They were rarely filled by anyone but students awaiting punishment.

He leaned forward, folding his hands on his desk. "Kappa scales are protected by a thin sheen of a very basic and primitive variety of magic that repels water. This magic, when removed from its natural environment, can take on other properties depending upon its surroundings. For example, when combined with the bile of an immature Buckboar, it can create a powerful antiseptic that will protect a wound from microbial invasion." Dewey was suddenly rummaging through her bag for quill and parchment, as though she had only just realized that the lesson had already begun. She spread her parchment on his desk, and he noted with an inward smirk that she seemed to be trying to take up as little space as possible. Her tongue flicked out over her lips, an unconscious gesture of concentration, and Snape reared back a bit in horror.

"Miss Dewey, _why_ in Merlin's name is your tongue that color?"

Her eyes widened and she bit her lip hard, an aborted giggle sounding from her throat. "Well, Sir –"

Snape whipped a hand through the air, silencing her. "Never mind, Dewey, I'd rather not know." She lowered her eyes to her parchment, and Snape continued where he left off, staring warily at her with his head turned to one side as he spoke. "When combined with Elderberry, the protective magic reacts with a mild stimulant contained in the fruit, which in nature serves as –"

Dewey interrupted him, clearly pleased that she could think of something to contribute. "- as an insect repellent. It shuts down the central nervous system of any insects that try to extract the…" she trailed off weakly, quieted by Snape's cold glare. "I'm sorry, Professor," she said meekly, and bent over her parchment, frenetically scribbling notes. 

She did not look him in the face again, even after he ended the lesson at precisely six o'clock. She scurried out the door with her head down, thanking him in a near-whisper. Snape leaned back in his chair, relieved, feeling lighter now that he was alone.

He ate supper at the High Table in his usual stony silence, acutely aware of the indefinable itch of Dumbledore's pointed gaze on him. Dewey, he noted smugly, was absent from the Ravenclaw table.

In his chamber that night, free to do what he wanted, he realized there was nothing he wanted to do. He wandered from his soft, worn armchair to a bookshelf to the fireplace and back again, restless and unfulfilled. The day felt wasted, heavy, disconnected, like a sleepless night. He felt as though he wanted to say something, to break the silence and clear his head. But even if there were someone there to listen, what would he say? He kept his mouth shut. He had learned long ago that he preferred the press of silence to the sound of his own voice echoing unheard and unanswered off the dungeon walls. A soft whine sounded from the hallway outside his door, then faded away. He held his head high to listen. Another brief keening, then silence. Probably some trysting students. The location of his living-quarters was not well known among the students, and couples in heat were known to descend into the basement to rut, thinking it empty and safe. He swept to his front door, mentally preparing for a confrontation, quietly undid the wards, and pounced quickly into the corridor outside.

It was empty. He stood in his doorway listening for a long moment, hearing only the eerie drip of condensation off of the ancient stone walls, before turning, slightly humiliated, back into his anteroom. The place seemed even more still, even more quiet, after such a disturbance.

Finally he undressed, feeling defeated, staring blankly at a spot above the mantle. Unlidding his cauldron, he poured a shot of his Nightshade mixture, now viscous and room-temperature, and tossed it quickly down his throat. The tea and honey did little to improve the taste. A thick, dull drowsiness fell upon him, like a wool blanket dropped over his senses, and he buried himself in his bed, falling into a sleep that he could only hope would be dreamless.

_This chapter's title is a lyric from "This Wicked Tongue" by PJ Harvey._


	3. 

**Chapter 3: "I cannot name this. I cannot explain this. And I really don't want to."**

_Tap-chink. Tap-chink-chink-chink. Tap._

Eleanor jerked out of her reverie over a leather-bound textbook and looked quickly around her dorm room. It was empty. She sat up on her bed and clutched the book to her chest, holding her head high and straining to divine where the sound had come from. Pandora's ears flattened against her skull.

_Tap-ch-chink. Tap._

She turned to the window on her right, expecting a owl perched on the ledge outside, and nearly fell off the edge of her bed from surprise.

"Oh, what in the hell…?" She marched to the window and pushed it open. Fred and George Weasley hovered a few feet away on their broomsticks, each holding a handful of Every Flavor Beans. Fred's arm was raised, halted mid-pelt. "The fuck are you doing?" she demanded, arms akimbo.

"Don't be _too_ happy to see us or anything. Wouldn't want you to have to change your robes," snarked George.

Her shoulders sagged guiltily. "Sorry. I've been studying all afternoon. Not in the best of moods."

Fred and George just stared at her. "Can we, er, come in, please? Before McGonagall comes round and sees us?" Fred said at last.

Eleanor's eyes widened. "Oh!" She opened the window as wide as it would go and stepped back to let them pass. They floated one after the other all the way into the room before dismounting their matching Twigger 90s. They let the broomsticks hang in the air and both bounced rambunctiously onto Celosia's bed. Pandora fled to the shade underneath Eleanor's bed, her tail puffed like a bottlebrush. As much as Fred and George begged and bribed and fussed at her, she had never warmed to them. Eleanor suspected that the cat's dislike was well-deserved; they had probably once tried to feed her Pepper Imps or something.

"We've been looking for you since yesterday supper," whined Fred. "Cel said you hadn't been down to the common room today."

"We wanted to check on your tongue," said George. "Has it worn off yet?"

She sat cross-legged on her bed and stuck out her tongue for them. The shocking purple had faded to a light berry shade.

"Hm," said George, leaning forward for a closer look. "_Kaleidus_ Charm's supposed to last three full days."

"What's got you wedged up in here all day, El? Is there an exam we've forgotten about? Or slept through the announcement of?" asked Fred, falling back onto Celosia's pillows.

Eleanor held up her book and let them read the cover.

"_Potions_?" spat George, looking appalled.

"On a _Saturday?"_ exclaimed Fred, looking horrified.

"I can see why you're in such good spirits, then," George snorted.

She shot him an acid glare. "Well, with all of your tender love and support I'll be my giddy old self in no time, won't I?"

George rolled his eyes. "Put the knife down, we just came to see how you were."

Fred looked suddenly thoughtful. "How was your session with Snape, El?"

Her posture slumped. She dropped her chin into her hands, elbows propped on her knees. "As expected," she said quietly.

Fred hoisted his eyebrows. "Mm-hmm?"

Eleanor sighed. "He's just – intimidating. He feels the need to lord his power over you _every single second_. He made me stand in front of his desk like an idiot until five o'clock exactly, then he lectured me a mile a minute for one hour – not a nanosecond more - while staring at me like I was some excised frog-tumor in one of his revolting jars. Actually, I'm sure he regards his specimens with more fondness than he did me. He looked like he wanted to flick me off the edge of his desk like an insect."

"If it makes you feel any better, he looks at everyone like that," said George. "Even the other professors."

"He just has a way of making you feel like utter crap, doesn't he?" Eleanor said, her voice breaking subtly. She felt a sting of humiliation at being so needy and vulnerable in front of the twins. She straightened her spine and held her head up.

Fred drew breath as if to speak, then paused. "It's what he does best," he said finally.

George smiled impishly. "Go on, then. Do your impression of him. Now that you've seen him up close and horrible."

Eleanor scowled at him. She was in no mood to entertain. "Fuck off," she muttered, irritated, and fell back onto her bed.

Fred and George gave her a round of enthusiastic applause. "Well done," said George. "Forgot the accent, though."

Eleanor snickered despite herself. "Now get the hell out of my room, will you? I have to feed Pandora and go deliver to Hagrid. And the Bitches of Eastwick could walk in any minute and bust us."

"Where's Eastwick?" asked George, frowning. Eleanor dismissed the subject entirely with a wave of her hand.

"You will come to supper, won't you?" asked Fred. "We've got to talk to you about April fools." Eleanor nodded indulgently and the twins hopped on their brooms.

"By the way," drawled Eleanor. "Snape was a big fan of your, uh, handiwork." She flicked her tongue at them. "Seemed to genuinely scare the holy hell out of him."

Fred and George grinned and high-fived each other, speeding off around the bend of the West tower. Watching them go, Eleanor wished that she had thanked them. For what, though, she wasn't sure. Pandora peeked her dark, angular face out from under the bed and mewed inquisitively. Eleanor smiled faintly and stooped to tickle her behind her incongruous snow-white ears.

"They're gone, baby," she said softly, a little sadly. "Will you eat?" She pulled a bag of kibble out of her bedside drawer and rattled it a little. Pandora withdrew under the bed again. Eleanor sagged resignedly, grabbed her dragon-hide gloves, and headed outside.

The greenhouses were predictably deserted for a Saturday afternoon. She flitted from enclosure to enclosure, gathering an armful of leaves, and vines, and bulbs. The only other person she encountered was young Neville Longbottom who dropped by greenhouse three for a pot of bluebells and chattered amiably at her for a few minutes before padding back to Gryffindor tower. Eleanor disinterred pale, fleshy roots from the black, spice-scented soil, stabbing expertly and fiercely with her battered steel trowel, working her tension out through her lithe and calloused hands. The greenhouses, laden as they were with languid greenery, dripping leaves, overripeness, and rich organic scents, always gave her a feeling of competence and fecundity. She knew the plants like she knew herself. Better, perhaps. She knew their secrets, their hidden talents and dangers, their potentials, their inner magics. She knew how to coax the shyest of buds into bloom. She knew how to poison the most malicious weed, make it curl away into a limp tangle of bracken. _It's too bad the talent didn't spread itself around a bit,_ she had been told, again and again. She wondered often if she would pay for her single gift with a plethora of deficits. If her whole life would be defined by _can_ and _can't_, with no in-betweens, no compromises.

_It's too bad,_ she thought bitterly, yanking a root from the soil.

            When she reached Hagrid's hut her arms were brimming with leafy stalks and gritty bulbs, so she kicked the door to get Hagrid's attention.

            "Hey there, Ellie!" he said, swinging the door wide and cheerfully ushering her inside. "Oh, yeh've got a fine crop fer me today, have yeh?"

            Eleanor nodded and dumped her cache on Hagrid's table. The stalks and grasses fanned out, and the bulbs and roots shone pale and corpselike in the dim daylight. "I've brought fluxweed, knotgrass, fresh foxnettles – careful, this was a feisty crop, they've probably still got a bit of bite in them – some odd leftover roots, and a few vegetables. Feed the redroot to your Thestrals, it's great for their teeth."

Hagrid beamed and picked through the harvest, examining. "Have a seat, Ellie, rest yerself a minute. Care fer a cuppa?" Without waiting for her answer, Hagrid bustled to his huge cast-iron kettle and put it over the fire. "How's yer kitty?" he asked, measuring tea leaves into an impossibly twee china pot.

"She's fine. Not eating much lately. I think she's been catching things around the castle at night."

Hagrid settled himself onto one of his huge wooden chairs. It groaned painfully under his incredible weight.

"So, Ellie," he began, an uncharacteristically stern downturn to his voice. "I Hear yeh've been havin' some troubles with yer marks?"

Eleanor sank into the depths of her oversized chair, huffing uncomfortably.

"I'm being tutored," she replied, sullen and defensive.

Hagrid's furry face spread into a mischievous grin. "Heard that, too." He leaned forward to whisper, the gesture laced with conspiracy. The force of his breath nearly blew her hair back. "He can be a strict one, Professor Snape, but –"

"He's a Napoleonic bastard-face," muttered Eleanor.

"Language, Ellie!" scolded Hagrid. "An' lemme finish. He's surely an unpleasant one, but he'll come through fer yeh in a pinch. Don't tell him I told yeh…" Hagrids eyes shifted back and forth. "… but he's stayed up more'n a few nights mixin' up medicine fer one o' me beasts that's taken ill. Grumbles about it, sure, but does it all the same."

Eleanor raised her eyebrows, circumspect. The kettle began its low banshee song, building up to a screaming crescendo. Hagrid pushed out of his chair. 

"Just sayin' yeh might give him a fair chance. Make it easier on the both of yeh. He ain't all 'e seems to be." With that, he turned and tended to the kettle. Eleanor watched his broad back with a narrowed, skeptical gaze. Hagrid, she mused, had a very charitable nature.

*           *           *

            Snape swept across the classroom with his usual villainous grace.

            "The products of your last assignment were predictably abysmal," he sneered. "Have _none_ of you yet learned to follow directions? I fail to see how you expect to receive a N.E.W.T. in this class if you haven't even figured out how to _read a series of instructions properly_."

            The classroom rustled a bit with cringes and sheepish shrugs. Eleanor stared straight at Snape's face, her shoulders squared. She wouldn't give him the benefit of her embarrassment.

            "We will begin again," Snape said disdainfully. "With a simple Pepperup. Since this class is so obviously in need of… _remediation_." Here, his eyes lit and lingered upon Eleanor. She did not look away, though her lip twitched reflexively. His eyelids drooped smugly, and she hated him.

            "Can anyone," he began, still staring at Eleanor. "Tell me what is the active ingredient in Pepperup Potion?" A few hands went up, but he ignored them. "Dewey? Can you?"

            Eleanor drew a deep breath. This she knew.

"Peppermint leaves," she said, quavering slightly and cursing herself for it.

            "And the active ingredients in _that_?" he prompted.

            "Menthol and caffeic acids." Her voice was steady now.

            "Ah, yes, our little Herbologist," Snape said, condescension curling through his tone. "Well then. What catalyzes the stimulant compounds? What gives Pepperup Potion its power?"

            Eleanor blinked, furiously excavating her memory. He had spoken of this during their session.

            "The feathers of the – Aethonan?" Snape gave no encouragement, not even a blink of acknowledgement. "The… levitation and weightlessness charms woven into the feathers… when removed from the body of the Aethonan and combined with the peppermint leaves… take on a mood-elevating property…?"

            Snape stared at her for a beat, long enough that she was sure she had been wrong, before giving a curt nod.

            "Be thankful that I'll be tutoring you again this evening," he said. "Perhaps you'll be more confident after a review." Sniggers bubbled around the room, mostly from the Ravenclaws. Even Celosia looked deliberately the other way, as if embarrassed for her. Or of her. She swallowed hard and held Snape's gaze. "Five o'clock, Dewey," he muttered. "I trust you know enough to arrive _on time_."

            He swooped away and began the lecture.

            That evening she waited outside his office door until bare seconds before five, hoping desperately that her watch was in sync with his desk clock. When she finally knocked, he ordered her inside with his usual laconic bark.

            "Sit," he commanded from behind his desk, and she obeyed. This time she knew to have her quill and parchment at the ready; still, he began before she could settle herself.

            "The Aethonan has evolved in quite a different manner than the creatures it resembles. It is nothing so vulgar as a birdlike horse, nor a horselike bird. By strict physical reckonings, its wings are neither broad nor sturdy enough to support its body weight during flight. It is the _magic_ inherent in its being that gives it the ability to fly. Its feathers are suffused with – what, Dewey?"

            It took her a moment to realize he expected her to fill in the blank.

            "With a – an interlocking sequence of charms which –"

            "We know them as charms simply because we have no other words for them," he said sharply. Eleanor felt strangely and severely chastised, as if what she had said was a punishable offense. Snape went on, leaning forward, his hands clasped together on his desk. "Charms are an artifice created by wizards, a way of harnessing and utilizing magic. The magic of creatures, though, and of flora, and the elements, is shaped and developed through a series of confluences and coincidences and necessities and disasters so complex we cannot _begin_ to grasp them. The discipline of potion-making is the closest we ever come to understanding and applying the natural magics. Now, _what_ are the properties of these magics?"

            "In – in the feathers…?" She felt oddly frightened of him; his face was livid, animated, lit with an energy she had never seen before. She had the odd sense that he might attack her if she made a wrong move; he had the tensed, fixated look of a cat poised to strike

            "_In the feathers_, Miss Dewey," he said mockingly. Her throat tightened; she was horrified by her dangerous proximity to tears

            "They create a – a near-weightlessness, which allows the –"

            "Oversimplified," he snapped. She flinched visibly. His eyes narrowed, seeming to measure her. "You've swallowed that over-digested textbook pulp whole, haven't you? How _very_ Ravenclaw." His lips curled maliciously. Suddenly, in a panicked burst, she thought, _he's trying to break me. He wants out of here as much as I do. He's trying to make me rush out of here in tears, or flip out so that he can punish me_. She set her jaw and stared at him defiantly as he continued the lecture. _It won't be that easy, Snape_, she thought. She let the words echo inside herself until she believed them, taking notes as calmly as she could manage.

            That night she camped inside the casements of her bed, wand lit and propped against a bedpost, long after her roommates had fallen asleep. Bent over her Potions texts and the copious, messy notes she had made during their two sessions, she rubbed the kinks out of her neck and read the words over and over, fighting to give them meaning, fighting to make them stick, her eyes narrow with spite.

            During the next Potions class he bore down on her harder than ever.

            "And the driving force behind all of this, Dewey?"

            She looked up at him with a hard set to her face. "A very basic magic in the hippogriff's beak, which allows the animal to crush its prey with a much greater force than would be possible given ordinary physics. When the beak is powdered and diluted, its inherent powers become flexible, and enhance the magical muscle relaxants found in spikewood sap," she said evenly, almost insolently. She could feel Celosia shift next to her, and knew she was staring at Eleanor intently.

            Snape tilted his head back, regarding her down the length of his generous nose, a curious gleam in his eyes.

            "Correct," he said simply, and finished the lecture without addressing her again.

            As she headed out the door, he called, "Dewey?"

She turned, her stomach clenching nervously.

"I trust I needn't remind you anymore of our meeting schedule?"

She nodded, relieved, and he dismissed her wordlessly.

That evening, they left mood-elevators behind in favor of healing draughts.

"Our next unit will include Skele-Gro and a variety of skin-healing salves and pastes. Few students are able to calibrate their medical potions finely enough that they heal completely and without side effects. It will require intense concentration, intense dedication." He paused, watching her, as if waiting for an affirmation. She nodded quickly, and he began. She wrote as hastily as she could, feeling frequently left behind by his quick, lofty elocution, but wanting to get as much on paper as possible. After a few minutes, he pushed back his chair, startling her – he had always conducted these sessions seated, from across the desk – and stood, smoothly continuing the lecture, pacing the floor of the classroom as he spoke.

"Do you see now why successful mediwizards are such a rarity?" he asked after a while, turning sharply on his heel to face her. Pausing a second to wonder if the question was rhetorical, she decided to take the risk.

"I _was_ wondering," she began, testing, but he did not stop her. "Why is it most people are so inept at potions? You'd think anyone able to read and tell time would be able to put together a working brew, right?" He cocked his head to the side, regarding her fixedly. "…Sir?" she added meekly.

"This craft is not mere _cooking_, Dewey," he said, in a quiet, terrifying way that made her stomach boil up and her muscles tense involuntarily. She wondered dizzily if he was angry, if he was about to lash out. He continued in the same soft tone. "Otherwise yourself and your housemates would excel at it. Potions manage to be both an art and a science – and more, infinitely more." His voice was low, almost imperceptibly tremulous, strangely hushed and reverent. He spoke like a Muggle clergyman, not in throes of evangelical fury but with a deep, nearly humble sense of awe. "There is a logic in it, a mathematical cleanness. And there is abstraction. There is artistry. There is _passion_." His body was preternaturally still as he spoke; his face, however, worked and shifted, more expressive than she had ever seen it. She couldn't take her eyes off of him, and her quill hand fell still.

She did not realize how long he had been talking, nor how tightly she had been gripping her quill, until her hand began to spasm. She looked down at it, breaking the eye contact they had held for – she glanced at his desktop clock – two and a half hours.

"Oh!" she cried, halting him mid-sentence "I'm sorry, Professor, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to keep you so long. I'm sorry." A part of her registered that it was hardly her fault; another, more instinctual one drove her to placate him and get out as quickly as possible. She scooped her things into her book bag hastily as he watched her from the center of the room. "It was fascinating, I'm sorry, I really am, I have to get back to Ravenclaw, it's so late, I'm sorry." She rushed past him trailing apologies behind her, as he regarded her with a look of intrigued confusion, and said nothing.

Four faces bobbed up to watch her as she rushed into her dorm room. Abigail and Mary Jane trained on her their deadly-beautiful predatory eyes, smirks twitching on their smooth faces. Jin and Celosia wore pinched, worried looks.

"Wendelin's ghost, Eleanor, we thought he'd killed you!" cried Celosia. "Did he give you detention on top of your – er, session?"

"No," Eleanor said vaguely, still reeling and dazed from… whatever that was. "No, the lecture just ran long."

"Is he terribly long-winded? Probably in love with the sound of his own voice, the way he drones _on_ and _on_," chirped Celosia, perching on the edge of her bed, clearly expecting gossip.

"I guess," shrugged Eleanor.

"Is he still bullying you with questions you can't answer? Don't worry too much about that, he just does it to feel superior. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about – we just assume he's so intelligent that it's all going over our heads." Celosia smiled smugly.

Eleanor snapped alert. She searched herself for a rebuttal, a way to make Celosia understand, and found no adequate way to express herself. "Trust me," she said pointedly. "That's not the case." Her eyes bored into Celosia, who looked away uncomfortably.

"Whatever you say," she said repressively, and grabbed a textbook off her bedside shelf, effectively ending the conversation.

Eleanor sighed wearily and stretched out on her bed. She felt almost dizzy, as though coming down from an adrenaline high.

"Where's Pandora?" she asked blankly.

"She went out," said Jin.

"The mighty huntress," smirked Celosia.

Eleanor pulled her Potions notes and textbooks out of her bag and closed the bed-curtains around herself, cocooning.

She had so many questions. She cracked open one of her books.

_This chapter's title is a lyric from "Shameless" by Ani DiFranco._


End file.
